Page 137 of Secret Shifters Next Door

I shook my head. “It’s fine. I’m only confused about how he got here.”

“Got it,” Blayne said. The large monitor mounted on the wall mirrored his screen. “Multiple arrest records for stalking. Most don’t have the name of the individual, but I was able to get into some court documents. Those did have names. This is the guy. He was your stalker, April.”

Steff pointed at the screen. “She got a bunch of crazy gifts after that smear story hit the papers. Could it have been this guy?”

“I could find out. What did he send?” Blayne asked.

My face went red. Heat radiated off my ears. I tried not to look at the other men. “Dildos, pornographic DVDs, a gallon-sized bottle of lube, penis-shaped chocolates?—”

“Okay, okay.” Blayne winced as he held his hands up. “Jesus, what a sick fuck. Hang on. Let me pull up his credit card history.”

We watched Blayne work, and I was amazed at his skill and how fast he accessed things that should have been inaccessible. In a few minutes, he had a PDF of Burns’s credit card statement.

“Looks like he made a four-hundred-dollar purchase at Cupid Swallow right after the story broke. It’s an adult bookstore and sex shop in LA. He also has a parking ticket from that same timeframe. Could be the guy. He was right there in LA when it all happened. I’ve got an airline ticket purchase about a week ago. LA to Denver.”

Tate stepped toward the screen and looked at the guy’s picture again. “Sick piece of shit gives shifters a bad name. How did he find April? Like, how did he get close enough for the hunters to find him?”

“All I know is he can be glad the hunters got him,” Steff said, holding me tighter. Nausea roiled in my stomach.

Miles shook his head and sat forward. “Why this guy, though? The odds of them choosing a random shifter to kill, and it coincidentally being the guy who’d stalked April, is about a million to one. I think this is a direct message from Ryland.” Miles turned to me and Steff. “He’s trying to tell her that he can protect her and Steff can’t. That’s the message.”

Steff growled, and I squeezed his hand in an effort to calm him down. It made me feel terrible. As perverted and sick as Burns had been, he’d needed help. A therapist and some medication could have helped him. He didn’t deserve to be butchered. I’d wished for him to go to jail and get help, not this. This was not my idea of justice. It was the last thing I wanted. It proved Ryland was even more unhinged than I’d thought.

The drive home was tense with both Steff and me on edge. The guys hoped it was an isolated incident, just a simple message to me, but they weren’t taking any chances. They were going to work on checking van purchases and rentals across the state to see if they could narrow down where the hunters were working from. It probably wouldn’t be that easy, but they wanted to draw them out. If they could somehow get them to come where Steff and his friends wanted, they could try to end the stupidity before anyone else ended up dead.

Even though Heathrow was dead, I still didn’t feel safe enough to be alone. The fact that Heathrow Burns was the least scary thing in my life right then was not comforting. Thankfully, Steff didn’t want to leave me alone, either. When we pulled into his driveway and got out of the truck, Steff and I walked into his bedroom and packed some of his clothes into a carry-on. He whistled for Bently, and the dog came trotting into the living room.

“Why don’t we stay here? Isn’t it just as safe as my place?” I asked.

“We’ll stay at your place,” Steff said as he grabbed his belongings. “You’re stressed enough without having to move to an unfamiliar house. Plus, you’ve got a top-of-the-line security system. Mine’s good, but I haven’t upgraded it to our latest system. The one we put in your house has all the bells and whistles.”

He grabbed the food and water bowls and a container of dog food. Steff and I, with the dog trotting along beside us, walked out and across the yard to my house. Neither Steff nor I said anything. I was too shaken up, and he was not in the mood to talk. The only sound was the dog sniffling at the floorboards of my porch as we walked up and went inside.

Steff set up the food and water bowls for Bently in the kitchen and grabbed a cushion from my back patio furniture as a bed for the dog. While we did that, the dog did a full circuit of my house. Getting the lay of the land, I guessed. I was still dazed when Steff turned the lights out, locked the doors, and led me upstairs.

In my bathroom, Steff turned on the shower and undressed me. There was nothing sexual about it. His hands were tender and loving but not lustful. He was taking care of me. Still in silence, he took his own clothes off and pulled me into the shower. The stream of water was like a wall slamming against me, bringing reality crashing down. I started to shake. Tears fell from my eyes, mixing with the water from the shower.

Steff pulled me close, sliding his hands across my back. “No one is going to get near you. I won’t allow anyone to hurt you. I promise.”

He didn’t get it. That wasn’t the only reason I was scared. I looked up at him like he was crazy. “Steff, I’m worried about you. Ryland is out of his mind, and he’s targeting you. The outburst at the picnic? The fucking dead body outside your business’s front door? He’s crazy, and I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you. Especially if it happened because of me.”

He pressed his lips to mine. The kiss deepened as our tongues clashed. He clutched my naked ass, pulling me close. When he broke the kiss, he looked me dead in the eye. “He’s not going to do shit. Ryland doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.”

I rested my head against his chest and hoped to God he was right. We stayed in the shower until the water ran cold. After getting out, Steff dried me off with a towel, and I reciprocated. We collapsed into bed, naked and exhausted, both emotionallyandphysically. I fell asleep quickly but didn’t sleep well. Instead, I tossed and turned, plagued with nightmares and strange dreams. I’d never gotten so little rest while being asleep in my life.

Even after sleeping like shit, I was up early. We still had promises to keep, and Steff and I were supposed to pick up Aiden for another day at his baseball camp. Steff was already up and in the kitchen when I came down the stairs. He was brewing coffee and had toasted bagels and cream cheese out on the table. I sat and started eating, and Steff walked up behind me and started kneading the knots out of my neck. He kissed my cheek, and I reveled in the quiet, beautiful moment. For a second, I asked myself if I could leave everything behind and stay here. Could I stand to lose this and move back to California?

The rest of the day passed in a blur. I sat and watched Steff coach the kids on all the nuances of third base. I literally had no idea what the hell he was talking about half the time, but it was nice to see him so passionate about something sonormal.If those kids weren’t baseball fans after listening to Steff all day, there was no hope for them.

Later, after we dropped Aiden off back home, Steff glanced over at me. “Are you up for a drive?”

I shrugged and nodded at the windshield. “I’ve got nowhere else to be. Let’s go.”

It was only a little after two in the afternoon, so he swung into a fast-food place and grabbed us lunch before driving out into the countryside. We drove for a half-hour before we pulled off the side of the road on a tiny little country road and parked beside a gorgeous open pasture. A bubbling, picturesque creek bordered the pasture. I blinked at the scenery. It looked like it had been pulled straight off the pages of a story book. Had it been this beautiful here when I was a kid? Had I really not noticed it until now?

Steff grabbed the food and a blanket off his backseat and set up a little picnic by the stream. “I know it’s been a stressful couple of days, I wanted a little time with only me and you, and no worries.”

I leaned back on my elbows after sitting down and grinned at him. “Nothing would please me more than to have an hour to relax and enjoy being with you.”

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